Armenian economic revolution has come to naught
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Hopes for a happy future after the velvet revolution are disappearing, as Armenian economic indicators continue their rapid decline.
Armenian Statistical Committee published macroeconomic data for January to March 2019 in relation to the same period last year. From the very beginning of this year, the greatest disappointments lie in the sphere of foreign trade turnover. For three months, the indicator of foreign trade turnover fell by 5 percent, exports by 8.6 percent, imports by 3.1 percent as compared to the same period of 2018.
A miracle did not happen, and the data for the first quarter of 2019 shows that the Armenian economy, despite all the loud authorities’ declarations, cannot be reoriented towards exports. The figures are significantly inferior to those of even the first quarter of 2018.
In January to March 2019, agriculture indicators saw 7.6 percent decrease. The Statistical Committee publishes data on agriculture only quarterly, due to the seasonality of production in this area and the need to smooth out sharp fluctuations in production from month to month, dictated by unstable climatic conditions.
Taking into account the chronic degradation of agriculture, the monthly indicators of economic activity without the constantly minimizing agrarian sector now look much better, so the decision of the statistical committee has also a political aspect.
Despite the efforts of the statistical committee to hide the existing problems, the first quarterly indicator for agriculture has been published and amounts to 99.8 percent, compared to the previous year indicator. It means that there is nothing “revolutionary” in the agrarian sphere, and a “counterrevolutionary” rollback occurs even from the indicators achieved in 2018.
More important is what happens in the industry. If in 2017 and in early 2018, the industrial complex on equal terms ended in growth rates with the same services and trade, in recent months this most important sector of the Armenian economy has hopelessly lagged behind them.
During the 1st quarter of 2018, the industry showed an increase of 8.2 percent, although this figure was 12.6 percent in 2017. The quarterly growth rate of the current year is only 2 percent. Thus, in this most important area, Armenia can only dream of the former high growth rates. In January 2019, industrial output just went down by 0.4 percent,
While the level of industrial inflation in January was 2.6 percent in red and 1 percent in red in February, the indicator ended at 0.3 percent in black in March, which does not contribute to the revival of industrial complex.
The figures for the production of electricity also fell sharply. In January, this figure fell by as much as 22.3 percent, in January to February the decline was 21 percent, and in January to March it ended at 14 percent. It is unlikely that a 14 percent drop in electricity production can be seen at least some signs of a future revival of industrial life in the country.
Thus, the Armenian economy enters a zone of unpleasant turbulence when all the talk about the upcoming "economic revolution" turns out to be empty hopes.
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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
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